


Best Served Hot

by VizardMask



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drunk Sex, F/M, Infidelity, Revenge Sex, implied John/Mary - Freeform, slightly implied John/Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-21
Updated: 2015-01-21
Packaged: 2018-03-08 12:36:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3209489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VizardMask/pseuds/VizardMask
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Janine teaches John Watson a better way to deal with his anger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Best Served Hot

The hotel bar is one of the most depressing rooms John has ever set foot in. The lights are too bright for a place where people are supposed to get drunk - they glare down with uncompromising honesty on the clientele, mostly morose looking men in business suits wilting over ipads, battered looking briefcases sagging at their feet. The tables, highly polished plastic pretending to be glass, and the overly upright metal and beige chairs look like they’d be more at home in a conference room than in a place where people are supposed to relax. 

For a moment John contemplates turning right around and heading for his room. But it isn’t as if that offers a more appealing prospect – TV on a fuzzy screen, in a room that still smells of cigarette smoke and the previous occupant’s perfume. No. There’s nothing for it but to drink until he forgets his surroundings, and the sickening anger that’s still pounding through his veins.

He’s on his third whiskey when a soft Irish accent cuts through the fog of gloom in the bar.

“John? John Watson?” 

John looks up. Oh God. The last thing he needs when he’s three sheets to the wind and still furious – to run into one of Mary’s friends. He pastes a smile on his face. Janine grins, apparently delighted to see him and slips into the booth opposite John.

“Well, I didn’t think I’d see _you_ here, of all places. Are you visiting someone? Ooh, it’s not one of Sherlock’s cases, is it?” Janine’s voice lowers conspiratorially.

“No, I’m –“ John shrugs and Janine’s eyes drop to the table, where John’s room key is resting. Her eyebrows rise. John looks away. How can he explain to Mary’s best friend why he has taken a room in a run-down Holiday Lodge barely twenty minutes tube ride from his own home?

“I have a conference here tomorrow, thought I’d… you know… want to be there early..no distractions.”

“Oh yeah?” Janine says. She doesn’t sound convinced and he doesn’t blame her. Suddenly John is very conscious that he isn’t wearing his wedding ring, and moves to pull his hands off the table, hoping she hasn’t seen. God, he must look like a sleaze, coming to a cheap hotel by himself and pretending not to be married.

“What are you up to?” John asks, desperate for a way to distract the woman.

“Oh, like you,” Janine says. “Working. My boss wants me to pick up some information from a couple of people, and for some reason the meeting can only happen at ridiculous o’ clock in the morning. I think he’s deliberately giving me the worst tasks he can think of now that I’ve handed my notice in.” 

“I imagine he’s a difficult man to work for, Magnussen,” John hazards, thinking of the fireplace in Baker Street.

“Oh, he’s a right bastard,” Janine says, cheerfully. “Still, I have my ways of getting through it.”

“Oh yeah?” John asks. 

Janine’s eyes sparkle, and she leans forward. “Whenever he does me wrong, I make sure I get something I want out of it. You know?”

John doesn’t know, but it seems Janine is going to explain to him.

“He spilt iced water all over me once - wouldn’t even let me change my shirt. He thought it was funny to watch me sit there and shiver all day. But he’d _also_ left me in charge of picking up stuff from the dry cleaners... so, I decided to use his tab. He’s been paying for the last year’s worth of my laundry and he doesn’t know it.”

“Nice,” John says. “I’ll have to remember that.”

“Ah, but you’re such a peaceable soul, John Watson,” Janine teases. “Who could you want revenge on?”

John opens his mouth, then shuts it again. His hand moves unconsciously to cover the other, feeling the empty space on his ring finger.

“Do you want a drink?” Janine asks. She is watching him, expression speculative.

“No, I’ve got…” John gestures to his half empty glass. “Thank you.”

“Only there’s a mini bar in my room,” says Janine. “And Magnussen is paying my expenses. One way or another I intend to drink it dry tonight. You could help me out.”

“Oh,” says John. “No, I – have an early morning.”

“Oh, come now. I’m sure it’d be better than the muck you’re drinking here. And it’ll be going down the sink otherwise,” Janine says. “There’s a lovely bottle of scotch in there, going to waste... I don’t drink the stuff myself. Go on. One glass.”

John looks down at his drink and contemplates the night he had planned. Sitting in an empty hotel room and trying fruitlessly to distract himself from the crushing feelings of anger and helplessness he’d been nursing since Sherlock was shot. Since Mary shot him. And the pair of them just…

“John?” Janine is looking at him, concerned. He realises his hand has tightened around the glass, knuckles whitening. He forces himself to relax.

“You know what?” he says. “Why not.”

 

Janine’s room is like his, the air dry and lifeless, as if it has been filtered through one too any sets of lungs, the duvet faded, the furniture plastic looking and unappealing. Janine makes a brief disgruntled noise and heads straight for the mini bar. John seats himself awkwardly on the only chair.

“Would you know it, they have champagne!” Janine pulls out a bottle and a couple of plastic glasses. “Well, cava. Still, gives us a bit of class, doesn’t it?” 

She twists off the foil and pops the cork, pouring it into the cups before handing one to John. He takes a sip, feeling the bubbles burst against his tongue.

Janine kicks off her shoes and flops onto the bed, bare feet curling on the duvet. She has pretty feet, John thinks, nails painted a pale purple colour. Lilac, Sherlock’s voice corrects from the recesses of John’s mind. Same colour as the bridesmaid’s dresses. John wonders if she’d had them done to match. He supposes it wasn’t long ago, though it certainly feels like it.

Janine seems to read his mind.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve had champagne since your wedding,” she says. 

“No?” John says, in a tone bitten short enough that he hopes she’ll realise he isn’t keen to reminisce. 

Possibly he overdid it because Janine looked at him, her face softening with sympathy.

“John,” she says. “I know it’s none of my business but I have to ask. Are things all right at home?”

John shrugs, and looks away. To his horror he can feel his throat tightening, eyes beginning to water. It’s just the booze, he tells himself. That’s all it is.

“Oh dear,” Janine says, in her soft musical voice, and hears her shift, feels a warm comforting hand on his knee. 

John knows it’s a terrible idea to talk about it here, to _her_ but he finds himself opening his mouth anyway. 

“It’s-” he says. “Mary and I haven’t been getting on.” _Since she nearly killed my best friend_ , John doesn’t add. 

From the frown on Janine’s face she already guesses that that’s an understatement. 

“That’s why I’m -” he gestures around him to the bleak hotel room. “You know. All this.”

Janine makes a sympathetic noise. “You’ve been here for a while, then?”

“I’ve been at Baker Street, looking after Sherlock but - well, Sherlock isn’t exactly easy on the nerves, either. You know, I guess. You dated him.”

He makes himself smile at Janine.

“He’s an odd duck,” Janine says. “But you must be used to him. You lived together before, didn’t you?”

“Before he threw himself off a building and disappeared for two years,” John snaps. “Yeah.”

John stops and takes a breath. His ears are ringing now, anger pressing in again. John needs to rein himself in. None of this is Janine’s fault, after all.

“Sorry,” he says. 

“It must have been tough.”

John shrugs. “It’s all in the past.”

“But you’re still angry with him.”

“No – I’m not, I just.” John stops, unable to explain. He’d thought he’d forgiven Sherlock. Truly believed they’d both put it all behind them, but then he’d had the ground ripped from under him again, with Sherlock and Mary passing secrets to each other over this head, exchanging looks of cool understanding while John floundered in confusion.  
Janine’s eyes are on him, something knowing in her pretty brown eyes.

“You should have got back at him,” she says. “It’s easier to forgive and forget if you do something to even the score. You saw my interview on Good Morning?”

John laughs. “I don’t think it’d help much if I told everyone I shagged Sherlock. Most of the world just assumes that anyway.”

“Oh, I’m sure no one would mind hearing the gory details,” Janine winks. She gets up and goes back over to the mini bar, pulling out more bottles. “It’s scotch you like, isn’t it?”

“Mmmm,” John swallows the last of his champagne, watching. Her trouser suit is pretty tight, giving him a view of long legs and the swell of a very nice looking backside. _Shouldn’t be looking._

“Oof,” Janine stands straight again, clutching a pair of mini bottles. “Here’s yours,” she passes a mini bottle of whiskey over to him, and then unscrews her own, tipping it a little clumsily into her glass. John pours his out, and takes a deep draft. They drink in silence for a few minutes, until- 

“You don’t look comfortable there,” Janine says, looking across at him.

“It’s all right,” says John, though the back if the chair is cutting into his shoulders a little now. He feels loose now, everything slumping towards the floor and the chair doesn’t suit his shape anymore. He can smell Janine’s perfume on the air, something lighter and sweeter than Mary’s – it’s almost comforting. Janine stands and holds out a hand to him.   
“Come on,” she says. He lets her pull him up and push him onto the bed, back against the headboard. Then she springs back onto the mattress beside him, making everything rock a little. She stretches out her legs with a contented sigh. Her shirt has ridden up a little, John notices, exposing a few millimetres of tanned midriff. It occurs to John that he is very drunk and on a bed with a beautiful woman. And that he is married. Very very married. The wedding was less than two months ago. The bridesmaids wore lilac.

“I don’t know if…” he begins.

“Did she cheat on you?”

John blinks, and suddenly his train of thought disintegrates. “Did she..?”

“It’s usually an affair,” Janine says. “With Magnussen. He _loves_ infidelities. Collects them.”

“How did you know this has anything to do with Magnussen?” says John slowly. 

“I smelt _claire de la lune_ ,” says Janine, her fingers pressing one by one on John’s arm to the rhythm of the words. “I got conked over the head. And then Mary stopped talking to me. I always thought it was odd she asked me to be Maid of Honour when I’d only known her three months. I figured Magnussen had something on her she didn’t want you to know, so…”

She mimes bashing someone over the head. John looks at her open mouthed.

“Janine, I’m sorry…”

“Not your fault,” says Janine. “Anyway, I’m not angry. I don’t get angry.”

She moves slightly so John can feel the warmth of her thigh pressed against his. John licks his lips.

“She didn’t cheat on me,” he says. “At least, I don’t think so. There was – something else – she didn’t want me to know.”

Janine’s fingers move on his arm, rubbing comforting circles into his skin.

“Not that I’d know if she had,” says John. “She’s lied about everything else. Both of them have.”

Janine pauses. “Mary and… Sherlock?”

John nods. He looks away feeling burning anger flood his gut again. He’s got no real reason to think is but the idea still chafes at him, prickling under his skin. All those shared looks, the way they always seemed to know each other’s thoughts. Talking to each other behind his back, discussing the weight he’d put on, his predilection for psychopaths (apparently). The first day they’d met they’d seemed to decide between the two of them, with just a glance, that John would forgive Sherlock as though he hadn’t any say in the matter at all. And he hadn’t, had he?

He’d like to think they wouldn’t do it. They wouldn’t do it to _him_. But neither of them had a particularly well developed sense of morality, did they? And clearly, neither of them gave a shit about how he felt.

“I don’t think they would,” Janine says, thoughtfully. “Whatever else has happened, they are both madly in love with you.”

“Sherlock isn’t-“

“I can see why,” Janine cuts across him. “You are very cute, John Watson.”

Janine runs a long finger along his jawline. She’s suddenly very close, her wine-scented breath warm over his lips. John swallows. There really isn’t any way he can pretend he doesn’t know what’s going on here, any way to pretend this is an innocent catch-up between friends. They’ve obviously crossed that line somewhere though John isn’t quite sure where.

“Is that why I’m here?” he asks. “To help you get even?”

“If you want to,” says Janine, leaning forward. A strand of her smooth looking hair brushes his shoulder. “I’d like to. I’d like it a lot. Don’t you think they deserve it?”

“It wasn’t my fault,” John says, which isn’t an answer, but the truth is he isn’t sure he has the willpower to answer that question. 

Janine raises her eyebrows “Is that what they said?”

John shrugs. “He’s my best friend and she’s my wife. I chose the both. That’s what I like.”

“My boyfriend pretended to propose to me to get into an office, and my best friend coshed me over the head. I chose them too. Do I look like the kind of girl who enjoys that sort of thing? Do you think I asked for it?”

John looks at her. Long shining hair, and long legs and large darkening eyes. She looks lovely.

Anger still sits in his stomach like a hot weight, and beneath it a sting of guilt. But his mind is a buzzing with arousal and want and _fuck_. He doesn’t care anymore. He’s doing this.

He kisses her. Her lips are soft, with the slight stickiness of lipstick. She tastes like cherries and behind that the slight sting of alcohol. Janine makes a lovely soft noise, and pulls him towards her. He slides his hands under her shirt – her skin is smooth and soft beneath his palm. He pushes her onto her back, climbing on top of her and she wraps her legs around him. The movement lights a heat in John, deep in his belly, flooding upwards and suddenly he is pulling at her clothes. Janine reciprocates, pushing his shirt off his shoulders, then palming him through his trousers.

“Jesus,” John gasps. 

“You _will_ fuck me, won’t you?” Janine murmurs in his ear. “ _He_ wouldn’t.”

The phrase brings an image to John’s mind, one he’s been trying to suppress – Sherlock in bed with Janine, long pale limbs entwined with Janine’s tanned ones. He feels anger and arousal churn in his stomach and he stumbles back, pulling off the rest of his clothes. Janine shimmies out of her trousers and knickers in a movement that is far more elegant than it has any right to be, and pulls off her shirt and unhooks her bra and then John is on her again. She gasps as he licks down the line of her neck, and guides his mouth downwards to suck at her breasts. John slides his hand up her thigh, and moves between her legs, gently pushing in to her. Janine guides his fingers, showing him where to touch and then moans softly as John circles her clit. 

Janine moves suddenly, hand groping on the bedside table, before she locates what she is looking for. She tosses it to John – a condom. He pulls the wrapper off feverishly, sliding it on.

“You’re sure?” he murmurs, forcing himself to pause for a moment and Janine nods in confirmation. She wraps her legs around him, pulling him in towards her. John takes her slowly, fingers still circling her clit as he pushes in. Her hips flex under him and he starts to move, rocking in and out of her, his blood beating in his ears.

 

He wakes early the next morning to a dry mouth and the distant roar of a hoover in another room. Janine’s hair is thrown over the pillow, tickling his face. John sits up slowly, looks down at her. She’s still asleep, long lashes brushing her cheeks, a faint frown line appearing between her eyebrows. John touches the space on his finger where his ring had been and wonders how he feels. He’s just slept with his wife’s best friend – or the woman his wife had tricked into thinking was her best friend. He ought to feel guilty. Instead he feels strangely blank, albeit with a side order of pounding headache.

Janine shifts in her sleep, and John gets out of bed, finding and pulling on his crumpled clothes. He tries to be quiet, but clearly isn’t quiet enough. Janine grunts softly and opens her eyes.

“Hey,” says John, trying not to think about how intensely awkward this is.

Janine raises herself up, looking at him.

“Morning,” she sighs, and brushes a hand through her hair. “Jesus, am I going to be hung over today,” she eyes him. “You going to Baker Street? Or... home?”

“Baker Street, I think. For now.”

“Are you feeling better?” she asks. John blinks at her. “Than yesterday, I mean.”

John thinks about it. He has the sense that he ought to feel guilty, but in fact – Janine is right. The anger that has sat like a rock on his chest ever since he found out about Mary has dissipated, just a little. For now, at least.

“Maybe,” he says. “Um – thank you. For the advice, that is. Not the-“

Janine laughs. “No, maybe I should thank you for that.”

John feels his face flush.

“They don’t deserve you, you know,” says Janine softly.

John shakes his head. “They didn’t deserve _you_. Me…” John shrugs. He pauses. “You won’t, um. I wasn’t planning on telling anyone – about this.”

“Oh, no,” Janine says, sitting up and pulling on her shirt. “’Course not.”

John pauses, stopping to look at her. “It’s just I thought that would be the point - if this was a sort of revenge for you… wouldn’t you want her to know what we’d done?”  
Janine turns her head to smile at him. “John Watson, hasn’t anyone told you? The best revenge is living well.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Revenge, Averted](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3709365) by [SwissMiss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwissMiss/pseuds/SwissMiss)




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